


Not Exactly Location, Location, Location

by doodle



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Bees & Beekeeping, Estate Agents, House Hunting, M/M, Old Age, Retirement, Sussex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-11-27
Updated: 2011-11-27
Packaged: 2017-10-26 14:31:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,591
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/284374
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/doodle/pseuds/doodle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>"I want to make it clear that this house is where we plan to spend the remainder of our lives. I'd rather that time was not cut short by an arthritic tumble down a flight of unwanted stairs."</i></p><p>Sherlock and John go house hunting for the perfect place to retire in Sussex.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Not Exactly Location, Location, Location

**Author's Note:**

> This a fill for the sherlockbbc_fic kink meme prompt found [here](http://sherlockbbc-fic.livejournal.com/9640.html?thread=45535400).
> 
> Thanks to Grassle for the beta!

  


Sherlock was shaking his head and grumbling as soon as the taxi came to a stop. The house was a good sized ’60's detached with a long driveway and a couple of trees giving it even more of a sense of privacy.

Carol, the poor woman who was supposed to be supposed to show them around, was already waiting at the gate. She was impeccably dressed and coiffed to within an inch of her life under the umbrella in the identical shade of pale blue as her rain coat.

"Wait for us," Sherlock told the driver before climbing out.

That didn't bode well.

John climbed out after him and felt his shoulder give a sharp twinge in the early April damp. It hadn't been right since he'd dislocated it four years ago and he was now inclined to agree with the A&E doctor he’d seen. Who at the time had pointed out that fifty-nine was too old to be doing himself such a mischief when that area of his anatomy was already suffering extra hard as the result of his war wound.

Sherlock, in true Holmes style, didn't bother with the niceties and ignored the hand Carol offered him. "Mr. Holmes, Doctor Watson."

"Are you stupid?" Sherlock demanded, drops of drizzle in the air collecting in his silver curls as he glared down at her.

"Hello," John offered with a cheery smile and shook her hand. He'd given up on apologising for Sherlock twenty years ago. He found it made his life much less stressful.

"I'm sorry?" she said, her attention flicking back between John and Sherlock, whose irritation was written pretty obviously across his face.

"I'm fairly certain I said we did not want a house with stairs. I may be retiring, but my faculties are still vastly superior to everyone else’s, including yours. Did you honestly think it would escape my notice that this house has at least two floors?"

It took a moment for Carol to recover herself and get the professional, slightly plastic smile back in place. "You did request to view single level properties only. However, I felt that in spite of the stairs, this property still has a great deal to offer, meeting a lot of your other criteria. And there is al -"

"If we wanted a house that only meets _some_ of our criteria, we'd buy the first one we see," Sherlock snapped. "I want to make it clear that this house is where we plan to spend the remainder of our lives. I'd rather that time was not cut short by an arthritic tumble down a flight of unwanted stairs."

Sherlock turned on his heel and stomped back to the taxi. John offered Carol another smile. In this case, John had to agree with Sherlock.

"Give us a ring when you find something else," he said, before following Sherlock and climbing into the taxi next to him.

Sherlock told the driver to take them back to the train station, and John was glad that Sherlock could still amuse himself for hours deducing strangers. John linked their fingers together, and Sherlock squeezed.

"Do you know she was going to suggest a stair lift? A _stair lift_ , John. _Us_?"

John couldn't help but laugh at Sherlock's indignation coupled with the mental image of Sherlock impatiently being taken up the stairs on a motorised plastic chair in twenty years’ time. "Never," John promised through his smile and kissed the back of Sherlock's hand.

//

The house was all right enough. It wasn't perfect and needed a fair bit of work, but it wasn't as though they couldn't afford to have it done with the low asking price. It was a 1970s bungalow, but when you were refusing anywhere with stairs, there wasn't a great deal of choice out there. Even in Worthing, retirement capital of the south coast.

There was enough room for most of Sherlock's books, and the garage could be turned into a lab for his experiments. It might not have been exactly what John imagined, but he could see himself and Sherlock settling in. Turning it into their home.

Then Sherlock saw the garden. Or, what they were passing off as the garden in these parts. It was more a weedy patch of grass with a fence around it. Not that John had any objections to a small garden. It had been forty years or so since he last wielded a lawnmower and he wasn’t overly keen on starting again.

"No," Sherlock said in that tone of his that meant there really was no arguing with him.

"You did _ask_ for a garden," Carol pointed out in cool tones.

John gave her another two rejections, three at best, before she finally snapped and either lamped Sherlock or told them where to stick their house hunting. In the three months they'd been paying her to try and find them a house, Sherlock had rejected all fifteen they'd viewed so far and more listings than John could count. Too big, too small, bad acoustics, toxic mould growing in the bathroom, structural damage as the result of cowboy builders, too much double-glazing and not enough double-glazing.

This was the first time they had made it all the way through the house before Sherlock got that look on his face. The one that said they should all just give up, go home, and try again later.

"This isn't a garden," Sherlock retorted. His disdain for the manageable plot so obvious, it was probably visible from space.

"You require something bigger?" Carol asked through gritted teeth.

"An acre, at least," Sherlock answered after a moments thought. "Two or more would be preferable."

"An acre?" John choked out.

Carol looked practically apoplectic as she glared at John. He shrugged. It was news to him too, and bugger if Sherlock thought John would be the one keeping _an acre, two or more_ in check.

"Yes," Sherlock said to them both. "Where am I going to keep the bees?"  
Life with Sherlock, John mused, kept him on his toes. Even after all their time together, he could still surprise John at least three times before breakfast.

"What bees?" John questioned, though he was sure he was going to regret it.

"You said I needed a hobby," Sherlock replied. "So that I don't drive you mad. I've decided on beekeeping."

"Beekeeping?" John groaned. When they'd made their plan of how to survive retiring for their health and not killing each other he'd thought Sherlock had got the point. "You were supposed to pick something that will make me worry about you less, not more!"

"Beekeeping is much safer than people assume..." Sherlock said, a little sulkily, before adding for John's ears only. "And I thought you would appreciate fresh honey. I am _not_ making jam. Ever again."

It was impossible to stay mad at Sherlock, or even mildly frustrated despite the fact that John knew Sherlock was manipulating him. He gave Sherlock a quick kiss on the lips and a sneaky pat on the bum before he turned back to Carol.

“Better luck next time.”

//

They looked out over the cliffs, and John had to admit the view was stunning, though he wasn’t so sure about the cold air whipping around them. He turned and tightened Sherlock’s scarf against the mid-October chill combined with the sea air.

Sherlock had been more susceptible to chest infections and other nasties since hitting his late fifties. The unfortunate effects of too many years abusing his system, which was something that John did not lecture him on. He also did not lecture Sherlock on the importance of wrapping up anymore, not even after the pneumonia incident the year before, even if he did still fuss over him.

“I know it’s not Worthing,” Carol said as soon as they were inside the large, isolated modern cottage on the coast just along from Eastbourne. It was an obvious attempt to pre-empt the rant Sherlock had clearly been working on the whole way from Worthing.

“Congratulations on knowing how to use a map and completely ignoring the skill set,” Sherlock muttered snidely.

John squeezed his hand.

Carol continued, undeterred after over half a year of exposure to Sherlock. John had expected her to give up months ago, but it seemed as though finding a house Sherlock would allow them to buy had become a matter of professional pride for her.

“However, you have viewed and dismissed every possible house that has come on the market in the Worthing area since February, so we have come to the other side of Brighton. Where I have found you a house that meets _all_ the criteria.”

Carol sounded a little smug, and John had to give it to her, it was a lot of criteria to meet. She had even managed to take Sherlock’s demand for privacy to the extremes and find something so isolated, they’d never again have the neighbours complaining about the noise at four in the morning.

Sherlock crinkled his nose, John suppressed a groan and Carol looked like a confused mix between crestfallen and murderous.

“What, exactly, is wrong with it?” she ground out, through teeth John was mildly concerned were about to crack under the pressure she was putting them under.

“It’s far too close to the cliffs,” Sherlock declared. John imagined he had a perfectly good reason, even if he’d be buggered if he could work out what it was.

“The house is in no danger from costal erosion,” Carol assured.

Sherlock pulled another face. “I’m perfectly aware of that, thank you very much. They’re clearly hazardous. What if the puppy falls off?”

Carol’s eyes went comically wide, and John wondered as he nodded in agreement if she was about to become hysterical. Maybe he would offer her some money just to give up and let them pay someone new to drive round the bend for a year.

 _No, wait -_

“What puppy?” John questioned as he realised just what he was agreeing to. He’d been considering a bull pup a couple of years ago when the detective work had started to slow down but had dismissed it as a bit cruel. Keeping an excited little puppy in their flat wasn’t right, not with no garden, and the place in an almost constant state of toxic contamination from Sherlock’s experiments.

“The one I’m getting you when we move,” Sherlock said like it was the most obvious thing in the world.

John blinked.

Sherlock’s mouth parted slightly. “That was going to be a surprise.”

John laughed, hard and long until his sides hurt. By the time he’d pulled himself back together Carol had gone back out to the car and Sherlock was smiling at him warmly.

“And a surprise it was,” he said, wrapping his arms around Sherlock and hugging him close. “Get a male, I’ve always wanted a bulldog called Gladstone.”

“And the house?”

“We’ll find something.”

//

“This is...” John started, staring at the photo Carol had slapped on the table in front of him and Sherlock. There was nothing for it. He had to state the unforgivably obvious. “It's a field.”

It was an empty one at that. John wondered if they’d finally given Carol some sort of nervous breakdown. She was sat at their kitchen table, two days before Christmas showing them a picture of an _empty_ field. It didn’t bode well for her sanity.

“Is it an invisible house?” Sherlock asked in his rudest tone.

Carol gave him her best glare in return and sipped the tea John had made her before answering.

“It's a plot,” she corrected. “A five-acre plot to be exact. It's a half-hour drive to Worthing and the sea. A ten-minute walk to the local village which has a pub, a post office, a butcher's, greengrocers, a library and a co-op. It's private. There's enough space for a puppy to run around and not fall off a cliff. There is also enough room for bees and their hives. The plot even already has planning permission for a single-storey cottage or bungalow.”

She sat back, looking self-assured and final. “Buy it, get an architect and a builder, and give them your list of demands. I’m done.”

Carol stood and adjusted her suit jacket before putting her coat back on. “Thank you for the tea, John. No need to see me out.”

“Is that it?” Sherlock asked, the first hint of admiration for her in his eyes and the curve of his lips.

“That’s it,” she said and took a document file out of her bag. “Look over the paperwork, and call me in the New Year if you want it. If you don’t, you’re idiots the pair of you, and don’t call me for anything else. Ever again.”

John listened to the sound of her heels clumping down the stairs and then out the front door.

“Well,” he said, struggling to find anything else to say. While somewhere near the end of summer he had thought Carol telling them to piss off and never bother her again was coming, he’d started to believe it wouldn’t actually happen. That she would still be looking for the perfect house in Sussex for them when they were rolling around in wheelchairs.

“Do you think this is a good idea?” Sherlock finally asked, three cups of tea and some Internet searching and document reading later. He gestured at the photograph of the empty field and just as empty surrounding countryside.

“It think it’s Christmas in two days, and this time last year we said we’d be retired and living in the country somewhere by now. We managed the retired bit, but we’re still in the flat, and we’ve not even found a house we like.”

Sherlock looked at the shelf in the living room that held ten box files, all filled with property listings they’d considered and dismissed since the search had begun. “None of them feel like here, like Baker Street.”

John swallowed down the lump in his throat and reached across the table to take Sherlock’s hand in his own, smiled briefly at the way their rings glittered with the fairy lights from the tree. “None of them will. This flat is nearly thirty years of our history together. Nowhere is going to feel the same.”

“Then why are we moving?”

John had asked himself that. More than enough times to know the answer, even though there was a chunk of his heart that would always belong to 221b Baker Street. “Because we'd both rather I didn't have another heart attack and you learn to relax before your blood pressure gives you a stroke.”

Sherlock nodded. “Leaving London is the right thing for us.”

As much as it pained them both at times, it was the right thing to do. Sherlock wouldn’t have been the one to suggest it a week after John was released from St Thomas’ if it wasn’t.

“Yes, it is,” John assured him, lifting Sherlock’s hand to his lips and pressing kisses to each of his knuckles, then the fragile bones of his wrist. “As much as I'm going to miss it here, we'll build a new home. With the skull on the mantelpiece, your books everywhere, and my jumpers drying on the radiators. I plan on us making a lot of new memories there. We're still going to be happy, happier maybe.”

Sherlock smiled, all love and trust, and John’s heart quickened in the right way. “Happier,” he agreed and leant across the table for a kiss.

  
_end_   


  


**Author's Note:**

> The title is in reference to the British televisions show _Location, Location, Location_. Phil and Kirstie would have sorted John and Sherlock in a trice!


End file.
